babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.

It may have been amateurish and blatant, but that's all the more reason to be concerned.

Note that this alleged transgression is from the 2008 election.It is only coming to light 4 years later because of the unexpected small claims court filing by the disgruntled media contractor- (reporters would also get wind of it, thus time for EC to pre-emptively announce).

It could have been a calculated risk which rightly saw only a very slim chance of getting caught. When it does happen, as McGregor pointed out, EC "doesn’t typically impose tough sentences."

How many amateurish and blatant violations are out there by politicians who haven't been sued by disgruntled media contractors, we'll likely never know.

"MacMaher" wrote that "doesnt usually impose tough sentences" as part of a chain of covering their ass with 'nothing proven', etc. Going out of their way to not appear to be even implying this is something serious. [And what EC has handed out cannot even be called 'sentences'.]

But EC has never had a over-spending infraction this egregious- and with evidence of covering the tracks to boot.

Had the Del Mastros done this as they obviously planned originally, unfortunately it would not have even been a 'calculated risk'. They set up the transaction to look like the work would take place pre-campaign. So many campaigns are spending big on everything pre-campaign that there would be no red flag. Elizabthe MAy's EDA spent MANY times what the Del Mastro's spent pre-campaign.

Del Mastro blew it by not following through with the plan. EDAs dont have to file until June, or later. And by that time their campaign fundraising was over, so they chose to just not report that transaction at all- even as an EDA expense. That was just plain dumb. Arrogant hubris probably being part of it. They should have made sure they got the legal sources of money to cover the expense- even if that had to eat crow and get it from the party.

Thats why we know about this. Unfortunately, it has become all too easy to hide campaign expenditures as pre-campaign EDA spending, and there is nothing EC can do about that. They were not given the tools. Its not nearly as bad as the US here- but the same dynamic is in play: when you have literally thousands of campaign workers who will do anything, they swamp the system.

The Liberals do this kind of shit too. They are idiots, let alone the ethics of it; because the Cons can do 10-20 times more. So by playing the game too, they slit their own throats. They are handing the Cons the last ditch excuse when everything comes to light- "see, everyone does it. Thats just politics, eh."

The events in the Del Mastro case are kind of hard to follow. I'm going to copy a chunk of the latest 'MacMaher' article below. To make it smoother I'll just put that in italics- my interspersed comments are the bolded text.

Hall [owner of the company that did the E-Day voter contact work] mentioned in court documents that Del Mastro had also hired the company at the beginning of the election campaign to do $21,000 worth of voter ID and get-out-the-vote work and had been happy with the work. That election work allegedly included 630 hours of telephone calling and live calls on election day, an invoice submitted in the court file purports to show. Del Mastro won the election by a wide margin.

Holinshed was paid, Hall said in the court file, with two cheques from the Peterborough riding association. One of the cheques for $10,000 was cancelled and replaced with a $21,000 personal cheque drawn on a joint account Del Mastro held with his wife - an overpayment of $10,000 that Hall says he refunded.

The small claims court file includes a copy of a cheque, dated Aug. 18, 2008 - about three weeks before the election. The court file also includes a Holinshed invoice for $21,000 sent to the Del Mastro campaign on Sept. 14, 2008. It appears to have been signed by campaign manager John McNutt.

ED: not all the info is here, not surprisingly. But it looks like the EDA paid before they even had an invoice, for work that was not to take place until the end of the campaign. When the invoice came, during the campaign, it was signed by the CM.

After the election, Hall claimed, Del Mastro asked him to do $1,500 of additional work using some of the election data and to backdate the invoice to the election period.

Hall later checked Elections Canada filings and found that the Del Mastro campaign had declared only the $1,500 payment for the extra Holinshed work - a payment Hall said he never received - and not the $21,000 of work he performed during the election.

It would appear, that as you would expect, Hall probably was aware why the cmpaign/EDA was paying him the money ahead of time, before the writ drops. After the campaign, apparently because he is pissed they didnt pay him for the small later amount, he goes to look at the campaign filing, and sure enough... the $21,000 expense does not show.

A letter in the court file shows Hall wrote to Del Mastro's official agent, McCarthy, to alert him to a "possible mistake" in the Elections Canada filings. McCarthy wrote back to say the first cheque for $10,000 was issued in error and the other for $11,000 had a stop-payment placed on it. McCarthy explained that he shouldn't have paid for "annual expenses" from the campaign and instead should have pro-rated the amount for the election period.

This is gobbly gook by the agent. He doesnt know what to say, so he's making up terms. I'm kind of wondering if the substitute Del Mastro check is actually backdated to August, and that the mistake made in properly covering the tracks was writing checks from the EDA during the campaign period for campaign expenses, and they stupidly tried to cover that. [Which they later compounded by not getting the legal source of funds for paying the expense... so just didnt file it at all, anywhere.]

There is no obvious reason that the invoice and check for the $21K work that is under investigation would be in buddy's small claims court filing, which is for the later small work he says Del Mastro's campaign did not pay him for.

But it makes sense he would put those documents into the small claims filing to demonstrate that the campaign had been happy with his work previously.

There really isnt any reason why the EC gumshoe should have ever been directly alerted about the existence of that small claims court filing.

One possibility is that Hall was pissed off enough at being stiffed- and insult to injury they reported the expense they did not pay him for, but not the $21K.... so he decided to turn in Del Mastro. The documents show hwe was well aware they had not reported the major expense, and even told the agent he knew.

And it would not be surprising if over three years after the events, and two years after he appears have given up collecting what they had not paid.... he sees Del Mastro on the TV all the time, defending the party against charges, and that grates him all the more, and....

It does leave out who bought Holinshed afterwards and why, and how the $125,000 stimulus money was assigned, but it does sound likely that Hall was so pissed he decided to turn in Del Mastro. I do wonder if this is just an unrelated investigation, spurred by Hall's agitation or if Hall's company did any robocall type work that relates to the issue. In any event, we'll see if Harper is going to try to ride it out or send Del Mastro into a Bev Oda style purgatory of international expensive hotels.

Looks like Del Mastro will try to say the $21k check was not for work for the election, only the $1500 one was, but doesn't sound like he can make EC believe it. As Del Mastro said to CBC:

“They (Holinshed) undertook a small amount of work during the campaign,” he said.

“That’s reflected in the campaign expenditure (report). They did also undertake some work at various times for the association. Those would be on separate statements.”

When I was looking at Del Mastro's campaign filing, I'm out of practice and failed to look at "expenses as reviewed" as well as "as filed". The latter includes changes made after Elections Canada quizzes you. But "MacMaher" included this in the modified story:

Quote:

Elections Canada's auditors seem to have demanded more detail, because when the audited return was posted online, the single line item was gone and 100 smaller line items were added, including a $10,000 payment to Holinshed, under the header "amounts not included in election expenses."

Right, EC routinely sends back for detail with those big catch all "line entries". But when the return was amended to break that down, unrelated was the addition of a line item from Holinshed Research for $10,000. But it was in the non-election expenses, where you put things like victory party expenses... not paying someone for E-Day voter contact.

So that would be a red flag right there- big number to a voter contact outfit in non-election expenses for a campaign on the edge of the spending limit. The EC review of expenses would have been nearly 3 years previous when they are digging into this, so it leaves the question of whether EC pursued this red flag, or did nothing until [possibly] the disgruntled company owner turned in Del Mastro.

So what appears to have happened is that the idiot agent paid Hollinshed out of the campaign account rather than the EDA account. They backpeddled too late and the $10,000 check was already cashed. And for whatever reason, when their filing was reviewed they decided they better put it in somehwere. Since they were over the limit they put it in non-election expenses.

With all the illegal manouvers that the Cons have obviously been doing, it was inevitable someone was going to be stupid about executing it. Lovely irony that they chose this guy to be their official denier of election fraud. Couldn't happen to more deserving people.

ETA: Another look at one of the more obscure filing sections. And they show that $10K being refunded. That would be the proper way to file for an advance payment of work that never occured. So they weren't quite that stupid. And there would be no reason for EC reviewers to be suspicious. But of course, the reason that the $10K was refunded was not because the work was not done- it was because of the backdoor payment by Del Mastro. Backdoor, and probably backdated... with the fools deciding late in the game that they will later repay Del Mastro with EDA funds, and chalk it up as a pre-election expense.

So you think this is just poorly a poorly executed version of a common way to runaround elections laws? Sounds like we really should just change election laws to forbid party propaganda in non-election periods outright.

Hopefully it'll also open up some looks at why Holinshed was funded in the first place.

CBC is reporting today that in Etobicoke Centre, Optiz's campaign manager shut down a poll in a seniors home, with three afidavits from electioneers, despite Roman Gawur's denial. Wonder if that could effect the courts ruling (or Optiz's enthusiasm) on whether to delay ruling until after the summer.

I call something a "runaround" when you are doing more or less legal things to get around the intent of the law. There has always been lots of that, and there always be.

What is happening now is out and out violation of the law. Anything you can get away with because you have gamed the monitoring system.

Not much used to happen in the EDAs [riding associations] so they get light reporting requirements. They have to keep all records and do everything just as legal. But they dont have to file very much. And what they do file gets less scrutiny. They used to be just for raising money and other ongoing functions between campaigns. Now they run campaigns and spend lots of money long before the writ drops.

The really problem is that there will always be opportunities for people with wholesale will to violate. Conditions are always changing to create new opportunities. For example, this case is the tip of the iceberg that there are a slew of private voter contact companies out there now.

The clever way to drop an extra $20K on a campaign above the spending limit [20% over] for those who have it, and we know who does, is to do what Del Mastro did, except planning from the beginning to keep it hidden. You contract with one of these companies to do voter contact and pay them personally, with your own money or money from legaly maxed out contributers who haned you the cash.

That is not without risk. Politics is a small world, and through the voter contact contractor a number of people will know the work was being done. In 95% of cases they'll know or assume it is on the books. But you dont have to be as stupid as Del Mastro for someone to know the work was done, and happen to know you didnt file. The consequences are not trivial. People here sneer at the maximum penalties. But it doesnt have to go that far for your career in politics to be finished. [Countdown starts now for Del Mastro's exit. Albeit, it could happen any number of ways, and take until the next election.]

Still, you can bet it is at least something being at least regularly entertained. And for every scam the Cons do carefully, there are the Del Mastros as well. The 2006 In and Out scam by the central campaign was not exactly brilliantly executed or well thought out.

The Holinsged government funding no doubt won't look good. But you can bet he will have been developing something that can be credibly presented as a new product. Yada yada yada. Enough to make it fruitless to pursue. It is part of the general corruption, but its nowhere near as eventful as election fraud, and very difficult to make stick.

The owner of the company couldnt have worried too much about the scrutiny that he would knew would come to his funding. And its very likely he brought this whole affair to light, knowing his funding would come up as well.

Look for Del Mastro to be presenting a case that he knows it is not appropriate or legal for Elections Canada to refute.

In other words, litearly, this is all as he says about the court of public opinion.

Who knows, maybe he will have a compelling case. Maybe it was just really sloppy record keeping that didnt add up, and gave incoreect impressions.

In the more likely event he puts out bafflegab, dont be surprised if it works enough for Del Mastro to survive indefinitely and keeps the Cons from taking a big hit.

Elections financing is hard to follow, and it does not matter if the legion of critics, including media, dismiss what he submitts. All Del Mastro has to do is create uncertainty. If he is bluffing and bullshitting, there is the eventual court case. But these things take a LONG time to prosecute- virtually anything takes a long time to get through the courts when the accused is backed by deep pockets.

I am not guessing he will pull it off, just that it is feasible no matter how bad it looks. At a minimum, he has nothing to lose by trying. We will see whether or not it is longshot desperation.

That's going to be a hard defence to pull off, since Hall is saying he was paid for work during the election period and he has a check to prove it. This is from the Citizen article:

"They undertook a small amount of work during the campaign, during the actual campaign writ," he said. "That's reflected in that campaign expenditure. They did also undertake some work at various times for my association. They would be on separate statements."

But documents filed as part of a small-claims lawsuit launched by Holinshed appear to show that Del Mastro's campaign manager, John McNutt, hired Holinshed for election work on Sept. 14, 2008, a week after the campaign began.

According to one of those documents, a quote on Holinshed letterhead, the company was to perform 630 hours of voter-identification calls and get-out-the-vote calls on election day and on advance poll days for $21,000.

The small claims court file also contains a cheque from Del Mastro's personal account for the same amount dated Aug. 18, 2008, and an invoice for the completed work.

Welcome to the world of bafflegab. We'll see when he produces whatever it is.

But he doesnt have to convice you, me, Hall, 'MacMaher' or Elections Canada to create enough doubt for lots of people to say that they dont know what is going on. This looks to be more of a stretch than the Cons bafflegab around the 'In and Out', but they got away without any damage on that one.... and we really havent seen all the pieces on this one yet.

Sounds like Del Mastro is going to be in big trouble, bafflegab or not.

From tonight's Citizen:

Elections Canada has time-stamped logs detailing between 25,000 and 30,000 phone calls — including 7,500-10,00 “connects” — all of which were made during the election campaign, someone familiar with the documents said Monday. “All of this work was conducted solely during the writ period,” said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Conservatives will admit nothing, and they will concede nothing. Harper's method is always the same - fight and obstruct everything and everyone and wear the opponent down. Smash them all - Liberals, NDP, Elections Canada, etc. He has learned the art of Machiavellian power politics very well over the past few years in that it has brought him many victories because no one has yet been able to conjure the necessary resources to fight back.

BUT, such tactics do not work forever, and they are taking a toll on Harper's popularity and strength with Canadians. He has not only failed to build on the 39.8% he received last year, but he has eroded that support back down into the low 30's where he now falls behind the NDP. The day will come when his take no prisoners approach could be fatal to his political career.

They wouldn't put him out of power right before the omnibus bill debate would they?

It is absolutely not possible for Elections Canada to get Del Mastro turfed that fast- let alone the fallout if they were to try.

As to when they might charge him- assuming the apparent evidence holds up as it appears it probably will....

It is like any other potential prosecution.... you do not move forward until you have all your ducks lined up. Add to that general rule about prosecution of anything, none of these prosecutions are easy, defendants with pockets to pay for lawyers make it more so. Plus the fact that politicicans who ultimately get formally charged are damaged goods. Murderers commonly do not get charged until long after the police and prosecution are very sure of who committed the crime. That is much more true for charging politicians, because charges that ultimately get dropped or are easily beat in court are going to cost those responsible for the prosecution.

And it's just not seen as the right thing to do. The prosecutions- the few that there ever are- WILL take a long time. The potentially accused are not going anywhere. And charging them in itself, regardless of the outcome in court, in practice amounts to inflicting permanent harm on the accused before their day in court.

I think that latest article by Maher and McGregor is a shot across the bow. There actually is nothing new in it. But they are taking the opportunity to point out that Del Mastro made promises to the local media that he is going to produce supporting evidence. A]. he hasnt done it. B], here's some more detail of what is already a matter of public record. [Go aead Dean, stack something up against that.]

This is the answer to the implication be Del Mastro that his accusers do not have the goods.

It kind of looks from what Polivere said on his behalf that Del Mastro is going to back down from showing this supposed evidence he has. Which will be funny even if predictable. But its a bit early to be guessing that he is just going to back off from that boast and stick with general insistances he has done nothing wrong and 'filed all my proper documents already', etc.

Maybe as we speak the Cons are putting together a package for 'encouraging' Del Mastro to resign his seat.

It's a bit premature to be figuring the evidence is as convincing as it looks. But if it is, the Cons would be better off dumping Del Mastro now than having ths drag out until the election. He would tearfully protest his innocenece, but say 'for the good of my constituents and the government....don't want to be a distraction...etc'

Del Mastro has made public his defense. Basically, he's saying that the $21k invoice was a quote, not a work order, and that only $1.5k of work was ordered during the election. But that still leaves a big, giant gaping hole in his crediblility by ignoring the copy of the personal check he wrote for $21k.

Del Mastro says that's because it was a quote, not an invoice, albeit one his campaign manager, John McNutt, signed off on and submitted payment in two installments. The quote is dated Sept. 14, 2008, with McNutt's signature and a note about the payment dated the next day.

Del Mastro says the invoice for $1,575 reflects the services actually provided to the campaign. That invoice is dated Sept. 14, 2008, the same day as the quote.

While the initial statement of campaign expenses filed by Del Mastro's campaign lists the $1,575 charge, the updated statement also shows a $10,000 expense for Holinshed. There is no invoice for the $10,000 charge included in the expenses.

Harper is standing by Del Mastro, but neither will answer about the personal check for $21k that Del Mastro wrote, or the 630 hours of work done during election time.

I wonder when Elections Canada will come out with what they've got.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered his first public defence of his embattled parliamentary secretary on Wednesday, pointing to paperwork filed years ago and perhaps signalling that Dean Del Mastro will not be producing documents, as promised, to clear up questions about his expenses.

In question period, Liberal leader Bob Rae asked about a $21,000 cheque Del Mastro wrote to voter-contact firm Holinshed Research during the 2008 election, and a Postmedia-Ottawa Citizen report that documents at Elections Canada show that the firm did 630 hours of voter calls for that money — work that does not appear on Del Mastro’s expense statement.

CBC is reporting that Elections Canada has now got banking information from Del Mastro:
The Peterborough, Ont., MP has been the subject of three production orders since April 23, 2011, including two that required Royal Bank of Canada to release his personal banking records for the investigation into his 2008 federal election spending.
At issue is a $21,000 contract for polling and research, which Del Mastro says was for work never performed, but which the man in charge of the research company says was performed but never reported to Elections Canada.
In the court documents, the investigator for Elections Canada says he is convinced through the interviews he has conducted and the information he has obtained that the $21,000 contract with Holinshed Research Group was paid by Del Mastro from his personal bank account "in a manner that facilitated the concealing and misreporting of election expenses and contributions."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/06/14/pol-dean-del-mastro-ele...
How much longer before he's out?

Del Mastro has been quoted as saying he knew nothing of Election Canda's investigation, but this article says that EC requested his bank account information on April 23. 2011. So he's known they've been looking into this for over a year yet feigned surprise.

Talking about long time, this is from the 2008 election and the bank records were requested a year ago, yet its just coming out now.

Its already been quite a long time, the information we're getting is from press looking at court filings, which means its already at least a few months behind the investigation. Is it possible that Del Mastro is going to get away with it, if EC hasn't made their case yet? Or could it really take this long?

From CBC:

The Elections Canada investigator, Thomas Ritchie, is now looking for records from Holinshed to trace the spending and determine whether the contract for $1,575 existed. He's also looking for information about a contract for $22,680 that was reported by the riding association.

It was Frank Hall, the head of Holinshed, which is no longer in business, who complained to the election agency, Ritchie says in the documents.

Ritchie says he believes the records under production order will show Del Mastro authorized the $21,000 Holinshed contract and that it was for work during the campaign.

"However, the return only reported an election expense of $1,575.00 as being paid to Holinshed."

"The amount of $1,575.00 was supported by an invoice supplied by Holinshed at Dean Del Mastro's request. Frank Hall, president of Holinshed, stated to me that Holinshed never provided any services in respect of this invoice and Holinshed was never paid."

Ritchie also believes the documents will show "Dean Del Mastro sought and obtained an invoice that appeared to describe services provided to the Peterborough [Electoral District Association] by Holinshed when, as Frank Hall stated to me, no such services were provided by Holinshed."

In an earlier production order, Ritchie reported Hall raised concerns about a handwritten memo contained in Del Mastro's Elections Canada file. The memo refers to a $10,000 deposit sent in error from the campaign bank account and says "invoice to be sent to EDA detailing portion relating to campaign."

According to the documents, Hall told Ritchie the handwriting wasn't his and didn't belong to anyone working at Holinshed.

The bank records cover Aug. 1, 2008, the month before the campaign started, to Feb. 13, 2009, after Del Mastro's election expenses were submitted to the agency.

Ritchie also had a production order issued for the bank records of the riding association.

The bank records show Del Mastro deposited the $1,575 refund from the campaign for the expense he claimed. There is no record of a $1,575 withdrawal from his account in the time period covered by the bank records.

The riding association's records, which cover amounts greater than $500, show it didn't make any payments to Holinshed from Jan. 1, 2008, to Dec. 31, 2009.

So there is no record of the check for $1,575 that Del Mastro claims he paid Holinshed, and still has no answer for the $21k presonal check. Sounds like he and his party manager are in trouble.